About Us - Our Team - Our Story

Creating healthier and happier lives

We restore trust and confidence in our client’s facilities and operations through a potent combination of science and nature.

Our Team

Susan founded Origen Air in 2019 after 14 years as legal counsel specializing in contaminated sites and climate change. She also ran a successful commercial real estate company and has raised over $3 million in funding.

With a 25+ years entrepreneurial career, Jackie has bought and sold businesses in diverse industries including real estate, hotel, restaurant, recreation, education and e-commerce, for a significant profit.

With a Bachelor’s degree in Office Administration, Graphic Design, and Bookkeeping from Camosun College, Krista brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to our finance department.

Biologist with an entrepreneurial mindset from Mexico, Irma holds a Bachelor degree in Biology, and certifications in innovation & entrepreneurship, as well as digital marketing.

Sarah recently graduated from the University of Victoria with a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology and a Minor in Business. She effectively handles grant writing, CRM maintenance, and the management of our Intellectual Property.

Marc is a dynamic and results-driven engineer. Armed with a Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering, he is responsible for managing our sensor technology, hardware-software integrations and data analysis.

With 15+ years of experience in plant propagation and plant growing strategies, Barret ensures everything runs smoothly with the operations of the heart of the company: our enhanced plants.

Our Story

Origen Air was co-founded in July 2019 by Susan Blanchet and Andrew Crawford. The plan was to convert a conventional living wall into a living, breathing air purification system for commercial properties. Our mission was to create meaningful health and productivity improvements to indoor air quality using nature as our secret sauce.

Susan’s 15 years of legal experience played a pivotal role in the successful acquisition of our plant-based IP from the University of Washington. Origen Air now holds the global exclusive right to distribute this IP within our proprietary air purification system.

The development of our MVP, The Sentinel, was stopped dead in its tracks by the global pandemic. Overnight, we experienced the loss of all prototyping, laboratory spaces and university professor engagements. Undaunted, Andrew and Susan expanded their office, hired a full staff of UVic engineers and business program graduates and got down to work.

During this busy time, co-founder and CTO Andrew, leveraged his knowledge of probiotics and surface disinfection from his days as an orchid nursery owner to launch a pandemic pivot of sorts. Their spin-off company Origen Clean was launched to assist Victoria-based businesses with a non-toxic, microscopic fogging service that prevented viral threats from persisting within built environments. Clients such as the Victoria International Airport and Saanich School District championed our technology and provided much needed revenue streams towards the bootstrapping efforts of our young start-up.

After 2.5 years, Origen Air has created strong ties with the Victoria community through a variety of channels. The first connection to the community comes in the form of hiring, training, and mentoring co-op business and engineering students from the University of Victoria. In total, we have hired over 15 students across multiple faculties of study. We have also maintained a strong cooperative relationship with Camosun College. Here, the Camosun Innovates program and it’s students have played a key role in executing testing and experiments on our offerings. In recent months, Origen Air furthered their reach within their hometown of Victoria, BC by deploying successful pilot projects across the city. We have created career connections between our young staff, universities, suppliers, our investors, loyal customer base and company supporters.

As Origen Air commercializes in Q4 of 2021, we continue to expand our team and facilities. We have created affiliations with universities in Indonesia, USA and Malaysia. We are well on track to deploy all 50 units by Q2 of 2022. Our triple-bottom line, clean technology solution will deliver strong returns for Origen Air, our customers, and our planet.